


my blood is singing with your voice

by FastPacedFreeFall



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fictober 2019, Identity Reveal, Inktober 2019, Rating will change, Vampire AU, canon up to dark owl, mari gets turnt but not in the fun way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 07:13:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20888183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FastPacedFreeFall/pseuds/FastPacedFreeFall
Summary: Ladybug has been attacked by something more horrific than your everyday akuma, and Chat Noir is dead-set on setting things to right, no matter who or what stands in their way.





	1. Ring

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm making another go at Inktober, this time with a vampire au(kind of). There's no real timeline this takes place in, just know that it's post-Dark Owl and the identity reveal to the kwami. Other than that, I'm basically making this up as I go; I really only have the beginning and end plotted out. I hope you'll all enjoy it, though!
> 
> The title comes from "Howl", by Florence + the Machine  
(Yes, I know the song is about werewolf lore, but it gets me feeling Some Kinda Way this time of year, so it seemed fitting.)

* * *

_"The fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress, until I wrap myself inside your arms I cannot rest_   
_The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound_   
_I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground."_

* * *

Adrien feels it from the second he wakes, there's something wrong. His ring is _burning_ hot.

He jerks from sleep with a gutteral screech, nearly dislocating his finger in his haste to rip the ring off. It lands in the divot on his pillow that his head was previously occupying, and he half expects the heat to start melting through the fabric rather than sit there glinting in the morning sun.

His yowl of pain is enough to draw Plagg's attention, but disturbingly enough, the kwami didn't take the chance to mock him as he usually would. Instead, Plagg focuses entirely on the ring, eyes wide and, Adrien swears, _scared_.

“We need to go,” he murmurs, not looking at Adrien as he says it.

“Go?”

“There's something wrong with Sugar Cube.”

“I- _what_? Who?!” _Since when does **Plagg** give anyone a sappy nickname like that?_

_“Ladybug's kwami, you dolt!”_

“You mean Tikki? Is that why the ring is so hot?” He's made no move to put it back on, but Plagg continues to stare down at it rather than disappearing. It's not often that Plagg is serious with him, and seeing him this way sends a thrill of fear up Adrien's spine. “Wait, if something's wrong with Tikki, then doesn't that mean something's wrong with _Ladybug_ too? But we saw them just last night!” Patrol had gone smoothly, no alert had gone off on his phone. How could an akuma have attacked without any signs?

“I can't tell,” Plagg hisses. “The connection, it's muted or something. I can't even tell where she is, or if she's even still in the city.”

Adrien can feel the blood drain from his face. He's never seen Plagg snarl and spit like this, looking like he's ready to claw the eyes out of the next person to cross him, and the seriousness of the situation wraps around his lungs like a rope and _squeezes_. Something terrible has happened to his Lady, something bad enough to interfere with the connection of their kwami.

“Plagg, _claws out!_”

To hell with today's photoshoot, they need to start searching.


	2. Mindless

* * *

_The first pink rays of the dawn had begun to streak the sky by the time she'd dragged herself to a decent hiding place. The little shed isn't much, and it's falling apart, but it's nice and dark and isolated, so it will have to do._

_It's also abandoned, so there's no one to hear Tikki's pleading._

_'Marinette, **please**. You can't stay here any longer, you won't make it!'_

_She's heard this argument before, she thinks fuzzily. At least once or twice. At least every time she noticed the difference in light peeking through the crack in the gap between door and floor. It has to have been a long enough time that someone will notice she's missing, but she still can't summon the willpower or energy to so much as move her head._

_'I'm not going to just let you waste away here! Just stay here and stay hidden until I come back with help. I'll be as fast as I can!'_

_Tikki flies out so fast that she misses the panic wipe away her Holder's exhausted expression, and she's long gone without hearing the hoarse croak for her to stop. It's getting harder and harder to keep her focus on staying quiet and unnoticed, not when her throat is tightening and feeling as dry as a desert. Her head pounds, her jaws ache, and the only thing filling her clouding mind is how very **thirsty** she is._

_She can't be helped. She can't go back. And Tikki has just doomed both her and whatever poor soul she brings back._

* * *


	3. Bait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, clearly, I lost the plot when it came to timing. Apologies, but Life Issues and family issues had to take first priority. I do intend to finish this, though, after a bit of retooling.
> 
> To anyone who's stuck around, my sincerest apologies and thanks.
> 
> * * *

Chat is trying not to descend into outright panic.

He's drawing on the memory of every lecture about _'maintaining a respectable public facade'_ of his father's he's ever had to stand through, and it's only barely keeping him together. Falling to pieces isn't an option at the moment; he's too public, if he's freaking out and Ladybug isn't visible, he could cause a panic throughout the city and an akuma to go along with it. The last thing he needs is another obstacle to finding his Lady, something else losing his head would end up creating. He needs to channel some of her collected, determined nature and focus on getting the job done.

Plus, once he finally does find her, she'd kill him for throwing the city into a panic.

It's hard to hold back his anxiety—it'd been enough of a challenge getting away from the photoshoot this morning, he'd had to resort to Cataclysm-ing a few pieces of equipment when no one was looking, until the photographer had finally cried that he couldn't work under these conditions and demanded to reschedule. With the ensuing argument, it had been all too easy to sneak off. He's been covering as much ground as possible, pushing himself to his limits with eyes peeled and keeping tabs on the way Plagg's magic vibrates against his skin, waiting for a sign that his kwami can once again sense his counterpart.

He still hasn't turned anything up though, and the sun beginning to crawl down to meet the horizon feels like a timer racing down to zero. He comes to a stop on a rooftop, panting and taking in the bustle of Parisians heading home for the evening, wishing that he and his Lady were among them just as unknown and unconcerned. Not a single hint of yeast and cinnamon, and he's quickly running out of time that he can reasonably stay out before Nathalie starts panicking, but how can he stand to go home without finding her?

And like the blessed day he and his Lady met, the solution drops in from the skies.

“_Ch-chat! **CHAT!**_”

It takes him a minute to realize that no, he hasn't been attacked by the tiniest akuma to date; it's not hard to see how he came to that conclusion, though. He's never actually seen Ladybug's kwami up close, but he doesn't think she should look so bedraggled. She's far paler than her holders' usual vibrant red, eyes half-lidded and barely able to keep herself in the air. The determined glint, however, keeps his hopes from dropping too far.

“You- you found me? Us? Where's Ladybug, what _happened_? Why isn't she _with_ you?” The questions fall from his lips as soon as they pop into his brain, but Tikki disregards them and flits down to tug weakly at his clawed finger. 

“Not enough time for questions, we have to hurry!”

* * *

They're racing across rooftops for a _while_, leaving behind Paris proper and going to the very outskirts of the city. No wonder he hadn't found her on his own. 

“What in the world would chase you two all the way out here,” he mutters, glancing down to make sure Tikki's still tucked securely into his collar. She's squeaked out directions as needed, but otherwise been worryingly quiet and tense against his skin. She still won't tell him exactly what happened to her and Ladybug after they parted ways last night, just urging him to go as fast as he can.

He tries not to think about what kind of scene he could be running into.

“Something bad. Ancient and _**bad**_.” He can barely make out her voice over the wind rushing past both sets of ears. “I didn't even consider that they would still _exist_, much less be skulking around Paris. Chat, when I left her, she wasn't doing well. I know she's still...alive. I can feel that much, but I don't know what we're going to walk into.”

“_Stop._” He can't listen to this. “Don't talk like that, Tikki. She'll be okay. We're going to find her, and she'll be okay.”

“Chat...”

“We have to stay positive, Tikki, _please_.”

She doesn't respond, but he feels a tiny nod against his neck. It doesn't make him feel any better; if the wielder of destruction and bad luck is the one having to keep everyone's spirits up and hope alive, it's a testament to how utterly _fucked_ they must really be.

“Stop, we're here!”

He barely skids to a stop before he can make the next jump. They're stood on a roof across from a decrepit shack, clearly abandoned and fighting to hold its own walls up, but only one strong storm away from crumbling. In other words, one of the last places he wants his Lady to be alone and vulnerable. He makes a move to jump down, but Tikki flits up from his collar to hover in front of his nose.

“Wait, Chat. You need to let me go in first.”

“I'm sorry, _what_? Weren't you just telling me that you don't know what we'd be walking into, and you want to go in _alone_?”

Her lips purse in an almost comically similar way to her wielder's. “I may not be at one-hundred percent right now, but I'm small. I'm fast. I can definitely dodge whatever may happen in there a lot easier than you can. If what I suspect attacked us is true, she'll already know we're here. She can probably hear us as we speak. You need to let me take the brunt of her first reaction.”

Something thick lodges itself firmly in his throat. “You make it sound like we're walking into an ambush.”

“More or less.” He's never seen a kwami be so serious. “We just... don't want her to do anything she might regret later.”

Every brain cell he has is screaming at him to get in there and make sure his Lady is okay, but he can't deny that Tikki makes a good point. It hurts to have to stay behind and wait, but it would hurt worse to put Ladybug in a terrible position later. He nods sharply, and Tikki flits off through the rotted wood of the shack. All his ears can pick up is faint shuffling, murmuring that he can't pick individual words out of, so he takes the time to scan their surroundings. His Lady has picked a good hiding place, of course. Nice and desolate. He'd be impressed if he weren't so stressed out. A cold wind ruffles his hair, and he can't stop running his eyes over the shadows surrounding him to make sure none of them are moving.

Maybe too good of a hiding place, actually. This isn't a good place to be when he's already so on edge.

Red flits back into his peripheral vision, and he looks back to find Tikki once again floating in front of his eyes. She looks even more worried than when she went in, and his heart drops down to the pit of his stomach in fear. 

“Is she-”

“She's- she's not _okay_, but she's stable. The problem is going to be getting her to leave. She's scared, and starving. We need to figure out a way to lure her out.”

The second Tikki says _lure_, he knows exactly how this is going to have to go. “I could go get some food-” Tikki's wincing, and he sighs, figuring that _of course_ it wouldn't be that easy.

“Yeah, about that... she's not going to want food.”

“But you said-”

“_**Food**_ food, Chat. She's hungry, but not for _that_.”

There's an unspoken thread of shock weaving through the silence that follows. There's only so many things that Tikki could be referring to, and each thought makes his gut wrench more than the last.

The way she phrased it? He figures a certain cat is on the top of that list. It solves one problem, at least.

“...right. So, how do we do this?” Tikki begins whispering her plan, and he nods along as best he can while trying to push down the sick panic swirling in his chest. One way or another, he's about to learn what exactly has become of his Lady.

* * *

“Are you _sure_ this is going to work out? Just, you know, asking for my piece of mind.”

“It _will work_. Once you catch her attention, I'll merge with the earrings, and my power should be enough to keep her sedated until we can get her back to Master Fu. Now _hush_, and get ready.”

“Oh _sure_,” Chat grumbles, rolling his shoulders as he steps toward the door. “Just shut up and trust me, Chat, it's not like your neck's literally on the line or anything.”

Tikki gives him the tiniest, high-pitched growl he's ever heard—he has to hold back a coo—but phases through the wood rather than replying. He takes a deep breath, listens for the soft knocking, and reaches for the tarnished doorknob.

The door swings open, and he is immediately struck by twin rings of glowing red staring back at him.


	4. Freeze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's give this another try. New year, slightly more motivated me? Idk
> 
> This chapter is from Mari's POV

She's burning. She's freezing, cold as a block of ice, but _she's burning_.

She could hear it the second her partner touched down in front of her hiding spot; his heart was _racing, pounding like a drum for her to zero in on, **begging** her to step outside and sink her throbbing teeth into it_. The pull of her thirst is almost unbearable, and it's only willpower and her own exhaustion that's keeping her curled against the ground instead of massacring her best friend.

It won't last, though. She can feel it waning, her resolve to stay a statue wavering with every beat in his chest. If Chat Noir tries to come in, she laments, there will be no stopping her.

Tikki's pitchy voice is fainter, but still coming through the wood clear enough to her—she's telling him to “Get ready”, and Marinette doesn't have time to wonder just what they're planning to do before the door is swinging open. Exhaustion be damned, she can't help but focus entirely on his shadowed outline in the new light. It's not hard to do, with the way his pulse still calls her. Green eyes stare into her own, a pair of glowing beacons.

It's entrancing, the way she can make out the beat of life through his skin. It's _maddening_.

_Her throat is so dry._

_He's right there, just out of reach. She could grab him before he could duck back out the door. Even with the ring boosting his strength and speed, he still can't take **her**._

Her gaze slides back up to capture his, all but willing him to **_stay, come just a little closer. She just wants him to be near, and isn't that what he's always wanted anyway? Just come closer..._**

A red flash catches her attention from her Chaton, streaking straight towards her before she can refocus to self-defense. The blur—_Tikki, she realizes with a swell of relief_—slams into her left earring, forcing a wash of transformation energy that leaves her ears ringing and her body slumping to the floor.

_'Thanks, Tikki. For not letting me hurt my Chaton.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, please review, and thank you for reading!


End file.
